An immune gunman and a creative defense

Chapter V


Scene: 3 p.m. Oct. 29, 1918

After a gun fight on Downer Street with notorious Chicago criminals Walter Stevens and William Von Gundy, rookie Aurora officer Lester Wedemaier and veteran Alfred "Swede" Olin were both shot. Olin, laying on the street, sends Wedemaier for help.

When Alfred Olin arrived at St. Joseph's Hospital, the doctors could barely detect his pulse.

"He was as near to dead, without dying, as any person could be," Dr. Sherman told The Beacon News.

Sherman gave Olin some stimulants and that revived him a bit. Olin, in intense pain, told the doctor some of the story:

He and patrol officer Lester Wedemaier had been paired together to investigate a stolen Buick and two rowdy customers at diner in downtown Aurora.

But Olin had forgotten to search the two men he was bringing back to headquarters. A tiny, costly mistake. Sitting in the back of the Buick as the bandits drove, Olin was shot three times by Walter Stevens, a notorious Chicago criminal known as the "immune gunman" because he had been arrested 300 times, but never even paid a fine.

One of the shots hit Olin in the chest, one inch below his left nipple. The bullet went straight through his chest, pierced his lung and grazed the outer edge of his heart. Doctors couldn't reach it.

A second bullet went in to the right of his abdomen, traveled eight inches through his body then popped out at his hip.

Wedemaier had also been seriously wounded, shot once in the stomach. But he managed to run to the police headquarters.

The same day Olin and Wedemaier were shot, Sgt. Daniel Drake, the officer who made the original police call, went to Chicago to look through "the rogue's gallery," the photos of wanted criminals.

Drake immediately spotted a scarred man with an unforgettable face - William Von Gundy - and a man with thick blond hair and a pronounced jaw: Stevens. The shooter.

Officers from across the state spread out with orders to shoot to kill. A hired man named Morris found Olin's hat - the metal piece indicating badge No.105 still attached - in an oat field three miles south of Little Rock.

The Buick was found abandoned in western Kendall County. Inside, police found pipe wrenches, burglary tools and a 1918 Ohio license tag. There are also seven bullet holes in car, including one on the roof – the shot that just missed Wedemaier's head.

But by late afternoon, 12 hours after the gun battle, Olin stomach started to hemorrhage.

"He cannot recover," Dr. Sherman decided.

At 3:15 p.m. Alfred Olin became the first Aurora officer in the department's 61-year history to die in the line of duty.

And yet it would be five years before either of the shooters would spend a day in prison.

Chapter VI


Scene: June 11, 1919 Geneva

The trial of Walter Stevens was a media sensation. Even as The Great War wound down, news of his trial ran side by side with "Austria quits" on the front page of the Beacon News.

Wanted for the murder of Olin, the attempted murders of two other police officers and several bank robberies, Stevens had managed to elude police for five months. Then, on Feb. 8, 1919, Stevens strolled into the Kane County State's Attorney's Office and turned himself in.

"I just got tired of being hounded by police," he told the Chicago Tribune. "They tried to kill me because I knew too much. I've been in Chicago all the time and the police knew it."

Although he was facing the death penalty for Olin's murder, Stevens seemed to hardly break a sweat. Despite his extensive criminal history – it was said that hardly a daring crime in the city was committed without Stevens ending up at the top of the suspect list – he enjoyed mysterious connections that kept him out of prison for 51 years.

And on June 11, when his trial started in the Kane County courthouse in Geneva, Stevens had full confidence that his team of lawyers (which included an aggressive attorney from Chicago named Clarence Darrow) would free him again.

He smiled at people who identified him as Olin's killer.

"I always feel great 24 hours every day," Stevens told a reporter.

Kane County State's Attorney Charles Abbott and defense attorney W. W. O'Brien opened the trial with a flourish, outlining their case and accusing each other of jury tampering.

Abbott was confident. But O'Brien was holding a hidden ace in the trial, a clever ruse that had taken months to prepare.

A few months before Stevens turned himself, an odd but friendly salesman calling himself A.H. Byrnes had shown up in Aurora. Wearing sunglasses, Byrnes handed out cigars, never sold too much and made sure to introducing himself to plenty of police officers.

Byrnes also made a point of asking a friendly Aurora patrol officer where the Bishop Hotel was. Lester Wedemaier didn't recognize Walter Stevens behind the sunglasses.

The stunt was too much for prosecutors to overcome. The state's attorney's office brought witnesses to the stand, showed x-rays Stevens had used to claim he was hospitalized when Olin was shot were not even from the wrong leg.

"Stevens had men testify for him in this case that have sworn him off the gallows before," prosecutors Harvey Gunsul bellowed in the closing arguments. "If he is innocent why was it necessary to go to Aurora to continue framing his alibi?"

It was no use.

After three ballots, Stevens was acquitted of Olin's murder. Stevens had enough time to shake hands with every juror before he was immediately re-arrested for the shooting of Wedemaier.

At that trial, prosecutors were ready for the defense.

On April 10, 1920, the same man who was found not guilty of shooting Alfred Olin in the same fight was convicted of the attempted murder Wedemaier. For the first time in his life Walter Stevens, the immune gunman, was going to jail.

Or so it seemed.

With the help of state senators who testified on his behalf, Stevens appealed the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, he also skipped out on his bail, fled to Florida and was involved in two more murders.

Meanwhile, William Von Gundy, Steven's Aurora partner, the man with the scarred face whose real name was Frank Williams, was finally arrested for a North Carolina bank robbery. He later escaped in dramatic fashion, killing the local police chief as prisoners climbed out the roof of the building.

In Illinois, Gov. Len Small tried to grant Stevens a pardon. It would be five years until Small, a Kankakee native, would be indicted for allegedly running a money-laundering scheme when he was state treasurer.

The governor's efforts on behalf of Stevens couldn't keep him out of jail. Finally, on Oct. 29, 1923 Stevens, 56, was sent to Joliet.

"I suppose I'll lose all my identity now," he said. "I'll not be known as Walter Stevens, merchant, but by some number like 3222."

He spent less than two years in jail.

"For in jail at 56, he's an old man whom all the guns and all the revenge in the world can't make young again," the Beacon News wrote in an editorial. "Walter Stevens is broke. They broke him when they broke his pride."

By the time those words were written, the Aurora Police Department had already felt the sting of losing another officer to violence.

Notes on first section:

This story was recreated from Beacon News and Chicago Tribune stories before the arrest, during ensuing trial and after Steven's death.